Sharp, beautiful, soulful, passionate, oh so English. Yes, singer Preston is quite something, and if his band The Ordinary Boys don't match up to the promise inherent in those cheekbones, they are still a more interesting outfit than their lousy first single and laddish interviews suggested.
It's the energy, stupid. Taking the stage in this tiny, lovable little venue, they rip straight into the Buzzcocks throb of their first number, grinning at each other and looking like the gang you most wanted to join at school. The orthodoxy of their influences is depressing (Madness, Buzzcocks, Specials, Smiths, Jam, Sex Pistols, yawn) but partly redeemed by the conviction and pleasure with which they tackle them.
Even the fact that their songs are often muddy and underwritten can be charming. At a time when record shops are glutted with precision engineered opportunists like Keane and marketing department puppies like Razorlight, the roughness around the edges of the Ordinary Boys makes them engaging. If there is currently a blueprint for indieboy success (one critical hit, one top ten single, rush released album) The Ordinary Boys weren't told.
This good will means that when the Ordinary Boys' peppy power pop hits the mark - notably on the two buzzing singles "Week In, Week Out" and "Talk, Talk Talk" - it's possible to believe they are a much better band than they really are. But when they are at their most crashingly obvious - the awful, wholesale Jam theft of "Maybe Someday" - it's hard not to feel personally let down.
It's true that Preston is a natural frontman, an indie savant blessed with all the right moves and some razor sharp lyrics, but with the bulk of his songs comes the nagging doubt that you've surely heard this somewhere before. In The Ordinary Boys' hands, pop will repeat itself.
Which makes the quite brilliant "Seaside" all the more surprising. FX guitar! Space! Originality! All topped by the longing lyric, "Enjoy your pretty things, the things you'll never use." For once, it sounds like a song The Ordinary Boys wrote for themselves, not their record collections.
Even that old bore Paul Weller got tired of writing Jam songs. Hopefully Preston will do the same.
